Where Guangzhou actually does morning tea

Morning tea — yum cha — is not a tourist show in Guangzhou. It's what the city does before work, every day, and it's the best hour of the day to be here.

Here's how to be in it properly.

Go early. Locals eat between 7:30 and 10:00. By 11:00 the halls fill with people reading guidebooks. Same food, wrong room.

The trolley is mostly gone. The old pushcart system — ladies rolling bamboo baskets through the room, you stamp your card — survives in a handful of places. Everywhere else you get a menu and a pen. That's fine; it's also better, because you can see the prices.

The tell for a real hall: a queue of people in work clothes and slippers. Not a photo menu in five languages. Not a hotel breakfast spread with a "dim sum" section at the back.

What regulars order first. The classics any table starts with: shrimp dumplings, pork siu mai, rice noodle rolls, egg tarts. Then whatever the room is known for — every hall has one dish it's known for. Ask, or look at what the table of regulars ordered. That's the local part.

Price reality: ¥15–40 a head at a proper local hall. The tourist versions charge triple for the same basket.

One more thing: tea is not optional. Order a pot, and when it runs low, lift the lid and rest it askew on the pot — the staff read it as "more hot water," and it's the oldest signal in the room.